It is well known that a vendor often rewards a customer for their own frequent purchasing or use of the vendor's goods or services. It is also known that vendors will offer a discount to a first-time customer in order to promote new business. However, there is a need for a system to offer a vendor the ability to award a customer for its initial business and repeat business, yet also use the services of a third party in order to avoid incurring its own costs of operating an automated discount program. Vendors may perceive a risk in adopting a customer award program because they may not be able to predict with any kind of certainty whether the offer of a reward program will actually be profitable. Therefore, there is a need for a mechanism that provides the vendor a guarantee as to the financial performance of the award program. As a result, there is a need for the service that provides the award program as a service to determine the risks of the award program prior to offering a guarantee to a vendor.